


Tack Three Times (near my bedroom if you want me)

by Saras_Girl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saras_Girl/pseuds/Saras_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poppy is ready for a good night’s sleep. Her visitor has other ideas. (All Life is Yours to Miss oneshot)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tack Three Times (near my bedroom if you want me)

It isn’t until the clock on Poppy’s mantelpiece chimes for midnight that she realises that her eyes are beginning to close of their own accord. The day has been especially busy, what with the recent outbreak of dragon pox among the students, and though she is accustomed to hard work, she is secretly rather impressed that she has made it this far without falling asleep in her book.  
  
Yawning, she scans Rosa’s latest letter and then uses it to mark her place in ‘ _Rosalyn Yeoville – Sorceress of the High Seas_ ’. Not that she needs to; she must have read the blasted thing fifty times before. She prefers to keep her taste for swashbuckling romances to herself where possible—it’s not that she’s ashamed, as such, but she’s always felt it’s best to hide such silliness away from her colleagues. Minerva would never let her live it down, she’s certain of it, and Draco... Poppy smiles to herself as she turns out the light and settles onto her pillow. She thinks it may only be a matter of time before he catches her out, given his penchant for hammering on her door at unsociable hours.  
  
Harry has been out of the hospital wing for months, but Draco is still a regular visitor, and she wouldn’t mind—no, she doesn’t mind; Draco is rather excellent company. He is clever and entertaining and far easier to talk to than he used to be. Poppy just wishes he could remember that some people prefer to have a healthy amount of sleep.  
  
She can hear his voice in her head as she closes her eyes and tucks her crisp sheets around herself.  
  
 _“Poppy, do you have a moment? Good grief, it’s not really that time, is it?”_  
  
Letting out a long, amused exhalation, she allows herself to drift. Surrounded by the darkness, her favourite scents of eucalyptus and cool linen and the soft, restful ticking of her mantel clock, she is asleep within minutes.  
  
 _Tack_.  
  
Poppy shifts in her sleep.  
  
 _Tack tack_.  
  
Mumbling to herself, she turns over and flips her pillow to the cool side. Must be the clock. Louder than usual, somehow.  
  
 _Tack tack tack_.  
  
Slowly, Poppy opens one eye.  
  
 _TACK TACK TACK_ THUMP!  
  
Poppy sits up straight in bed, both eyes wide open now. As she scrabbles for her wand on the bedside table, the noises seem to draw closer. A series of tacks, each louder and more urgent than the last, are accompanied by a variety of scrabbling and crashing sounds, and as she lights the room at last, the something in the corridor collides with her door and issues a rather plaintive _‘tack tack tack’_.  
  
Poppy sighs. She knows those sounds all too well. The only question is what their owner is doing anywhere near her bedroom in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Reluctantly, she pushes back her sheets, pulls on her dressing gown and goes to the door.  
  
 _Tack_ , clicks her visitor, bumping against the solid wood insistently.  
  
“Just a minute,” she reproves, pulling open the door and illuminating the forlorn-looking beetle in a pool of wandlight. “Ah. I thought it was you.”  
  
 _Tack! Tack!_ says Stanley, waving his antennae at her in what looks almost like a greeting.  
  
“How on earth did you get up here?” she asks, casting her wandlight into the stairwell at the end of the corridor. The steps are quite steep in this part of the castle and, as far as she knows, Draco has always had to carry the beetle up the stairs under his arm.  
  
Stanley clicks softly and turns in a complete circle. Poppy gazes down at him, mystified. The little harness he always wears is nowhere to be seen and she begins to wonder if he has, in fact, escaped. Why he would come to her is another question, she thinks. While she has grown used to the presence of the giant beetle at Draco’s side, she can’t say that the two of them have ever developed much of a relationship. To Stanley’s credit, he is usually quite well behaved and is—as Draco always insists—very clean indeed, but no amount of cleanliness or good behaviour has so far been able to overcome her instinctive distrust of creepy-crawly things.  
  
It’s silly, she knows, much like her love of piratical romances and her collection of little pewter animals, but ever since she was a child, she has preferred to give spiders and centipedes and such a rather wide berth. There are just too many legs, she thinks. It’s almost impossible to keep track of them all, and something about that rather unnerves her. As though reading her thoughts, Stanley tacks loudly and scuttles from side to side, all six legs flailing beneath him. When he comes to rest in front of her, he flaps his wings and attempts a small jump, and something in the odd little movement makes Poppy smile.  
  
 _Tack tack tack tack_! Stanley clicks, edging closer to her bare feet and waving his antennae furiously.  
  
Poppy’s heart speeds but she forces herself to stay put. “Are you lost?” she asks.  
  
Stanley does not respond. He is far too interested in the trailing fluffy belt of her dressing gown.  
  
“You can’t stay here,” she says, wondering what on earth she is going to do with the beetle.  
  
Even as she wonders, she knows she has no real option but to take him back to where he came from.  
  
“So help me,” she sighs, raising her eyes to the ceiling before locking her door and bending carefully to pick up Stanley.  
  
He is both heavier and warmer than she had expected, and he wriggles a little as she tucks him under her arm and points her wand to light the way ahead.  
  
“Keep still, you naughty beetle,” she instructs, trying to ignore the way his little feet scrabble against her nightdress. He’s far too big to be a proper creepy-crawly, she tells herself firmly. He’s as big as Rosa’s cat. That’s right... he’s just a shiny, six-legged cat. Absolutely nothing to worry about.  
  
 _Tack tack_? Stanley clicks uncertainly.  
  
“Yes, still,” she says. “And quiet.”  
  
 _Tack_ , says Stanley, swiping one antenna over her collar. She shivers and looks at him sternly.  
  
“No, quieter than that,” she whispers. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the idea of running into Argus while I’m in my dressing gown.”  
  
The beetle, apparently, has nothing to say to that. Instead, he merely dangles under her arm, motionless except for the occasional twitch of antennae in response to the usual creaks and groans of the castle at night. By the time she reaches Draco’s corridor, she begins to relax. They have not come across a single other soul in the darkness, and Stanley has not tried to escape or misbehave. She thinks she can feel his tiny, rapid heartbeat against her side and the sensation is unexpectedly comforting. It isn’t until she comes within a few paces of the door that she realises she needn’t have continued to carry him beyond the stairs.  
  
Startled at herself, she gently pushes on the door, unsurprised to feel it creak open under her fingers.  
  
“Someone didn’t close this properly, did they?” she murmurs to Stanley.  
  
She briefly considers depositing Stanley on the floor and closing the door behind him but decides that, to be on the safe side, she should take just a moment to check that everything is okay.  
  
“Shush now,” she whispers, tucking Stanley more securely under her arm.  
  
As she creeps across Draco’s moonlit living room with a gently clicking beetle tucked against her side, she has to fight down the very real feeling that she has, at last, descended into madness. With so many years at Hogwarts, she supposes it has only been a matter of time.  
  
The bedroom door is slightly ajar and she walks quietly towards it, burying her guilt in concern. She peers into the room, holding her breath. Stanley whips an antenna into her eye and she hisses in pain, briefly reconsidering her friendly feelings towards the beetle. Instead, she just pats his shell and sets him down, watching as he scuttles immediately for the bed and attempts to climb up the quilt. Rubbing her eye, Poppy pauses for a moment and gazes at the dark, tangled shapes of her two friends and colleagues.  
  
Her boys.  
  
She smiles to herself and withdraws, deciding to leave before she crosses the line between helpful returner of beetles and simple voyeur. As she pads across the floor and gently closes Draco’s door behind herself, it occurs to her that Stanley, having lost his way, had come looking for _her_. Unexpectedly touched by this idea, she walks slowly through the castle and back up to her rooms, and as she settles back into bed and drifts off to sleep, she is struck by the idea that she has, quite unwittingly, become some sort of great-aunt figure to an oversized beetle.  
  
She thinks Rosalyn Yeoville would be proud.


End file.
